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Thursday, February 18, 2016

18 Feb - Blogs I'm Following

United Nations Command, U.S. Forces Korea deputy commander and U.S. 7th Air Force commander, Lt. Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy and Lt. Gen. Wang-keon Lee, Republica of Korea Air Force Operations Command commander, speak to international media at Osan Air Base, South Korea, Feb. 17, 2016, after a flyover from four U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter aircraft in response to recent provocative action by North Korea. (Photo by Benjamin Sutton/U.S. Air Force) *WNU Editor*: For more on the four F-22s that flew over South Korea go to the following link .... *These are the F-22s That Just Fle...more »

[image: Republican presidential candidates participate in the Republican Presidential Candidates Debate February 6, 2016 at St. Anselm's College Institute of Politics in Manchester, New Hampshire. From left are: Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, and Ted Cruz. Seven Republicans campaigning to be US president are in a fight for survival in their last debate Saturday before the New Hampshire primary, battling to win over a significant number of undecided voters. / AFP / JEWEL SAMAD (Photo credit should read JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)] Hey, America: Remember when Rick Perry was sti...more »

Financial Times *Walter Russell Mead, Hudson Institute:* *Russia Wields the Kurdish Weapon* An incoherent American strategy is allowing Putin’s Russia to drive wedges into American alliances and disrupt what little strategy the U.S. has left in Syria. The latest example: Russia’s clever move to back the Syrian Kurds—key allies in what passes for America’s anti-ISIS strategy—against the Turks, America’s NATO allies and the keystone of any serious policy to restore order to Syria without the use of American troops. As the Turks pound the Syrian Kurds and the Syrian Kurds turn to Russ...more »

You may recall the other day we ran a guest post by Eric Kingson, the progressive Democrat running in Syracuse, New York for a congressional seat held by conservative Republican incumbent John Katko, about why he's backing Bernie. In the spirit of fairness, I decided to ask some progressive Members of Congress-- so, no Blue Dogs or New Dems-- if they'd like to write a guest post about why they endorsed Hillary. Kingston was very complimentary about her and didn't say a negative word. His whole post was about why Bernie was good, not about why she's bad. And it I thought it would b...more »

Screen grab of a bus carrying rebels from Turkey to Syria. RUDAW *The Guardian/AFP*: *Hundreds of armed rebels cross from Turkey into Syria, says monitor* Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports 500 insurgents and Islamist fighters headed for town of Azaz where anti-Assad forces have lost ground At least 500 rebels on Wednesday crossed the Turkish border, a monitor said, and headed for the Syrian town of Azaz in northern Aleppo province where opposition forces have suffered setbacks at the hands of Kurdish fighters. “At least 500 rebels have crossed the Bab al-Salam border cro...more »

Why do some transnational advocacy movements have more success transforming global markets than others? Can we look to look to differences in market structure for a preliminary account? Why were AIDS advocates able to achieve extended access to antiretroviral medications for millions of people while climate campaigners have struggled to achieve comparable gains? This week, International Studies […]

[image: British Prime Minister David Cameron, right, and European Council President Donald Tusk, left, attend during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. European Union leaders are holding a summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to hammer out a deal designed to keep Britain in the 28-nation bloc.] BRUSSELS (AP) -- Prime Minister David Cameron faced off Thursday against the 27 other European Union leaders, telling them to grant his country a new deal to settle the festering issue of their relationship or face a possible divor...more »

*Turkey has made a strategic mistake by aligning itself so publicly with the fate of ISIS in Syria and across the region.* There would be no war in Syria today if there was no Sykes-Picot, no creation of the State of Israel, no Islamic Revolution in Iran, no American invasion of Iraq, no Syrian support for the Palestinian resistance and Hezbollah, and no funding of Wahhabi mosques around the world by the Saudi monarchy. But, history being what it is, and humanity being what it is, the wars in and over Syria were always inevitable. Assad should've seen the signs much earlier, and s...more »

by Susan Ohanian Today I decided to make a political statement. I donated 100 NEW books to my town's Food Shelf. This list is a combination of selections of middle-grade favorites compiled by my local children's bookstore and also some golden oldies for which I have fond kid connections. Kid stories travel with these books. I figure you can never go wrong with Junie B. Jones and Miss Nelson. And if you haven't read *Owl in Love: Schoolgirl by day, owl by night, *do it! NOTE: None of these books appears in the Common Core retinue of sacred writings, but I'd testify that any one of...more »

[image: FBI and Homeland Security investigators carry a computer tower and manila envelopes from the Corona, Calif., home of Syed Raheel Farook while executing a search warrant at the home on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. FBI agents on Thursday were searching the California townhome of the brother of one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terror attack. Syed Raheel Farook is a Navy veteran who earned medals for fighting global terrorism.] CORONA, Calif. (AP) -- The investigation into the San Bernardino terror attack that killed 14 people burst back into public view Thursday, when FBI a...more »

[image: The 16-foot diameter CIA seal that is inlaid in granite in the lobby of the Old Headquarters Building of the CIA.] The Diversity and Inclusion Office at the CIA just launched a strategy for both recruiting more transgender individuals and making sure existing employees don't put up a fuss. The three-year plan is the CIA's chance to "weave diversity and inclusion...more »

Yesterday the Trump Show made fun of how Jeb! looks in contact lenses and insisted that poor Marco Rubio is too sweaty to be president. "I thought he just came out of a swimming pool!," said the odds-on favorite to be the Republican Party's presidential nominee for 2016. In fact, since you mentioned odds... let's see how SportsBettingDime is playing the South Carolina and Nevada races, although keep in mind that all the figures below were released before Herr Trumpf decided to target Pope Francis for some of his signature vitriol. Like the pollsters, they expect the South Carolina...more »

(*Click on Image to Enlarge*) African Studies Center *Wall Street Journal*: *Africa’s Terror Crescent* *A spate of attacks shows jihad’s long reach on the Continent.* For all the attention attracted by the battle against Islamic State in the Middle East, Islamism is also wreaking havoc in Africa. Jihadist groups control territory stretching from the Horn of Africa to the Mediterranean coast and south to Nigeria, and that crescent was ablaze this weekend. Al Shabaab on Saturday took responsibility for a bomb that ripped a yard-long hole in a Daallo Airlines plane while it was flying...more »

*From* *Jenna Orkin* Start Preparing for the Collapse of Saudi Arabia The Beetles: Eighty-Nine Million Acres of Abrupt Climate Change Indian Point Contaminates the Hudson River With Uncontrollable Radioactive Flow Flu vaccine barely working this year, CDC says This Is The Real Reason For The War On Cash Hungarian Central Bank Hoards 200,000 Bullets, Hundreds Of Guns Due To "Security Risks" China Unleashes A Debt Tsunami: Creates $1 Trillion In Debt In First Two Months Of 2016 Turkey Blames Kurds, Assad For Terrorist Attack, Vows Swift Response Venezuela Devalues Currency By 37% As ...more »

*In a charming little video. So very reminiscent of ISIS....* Including the threat that *"Erdogan will drown in his own blood"* Nice stuff. From very nice people (snark) Of course YPG = PKK. NATO backed of course. Remaking the region while causing mayhem, destroying the environment, wasting resources, engaging in ethnic cleansing and mass displacement. Wantonly killing, raping, stealing the property of others and forcing children to serve in their militias. *While some morons in the west cheer on NATO's killers, actually believing that two wrongs (if you believe the Kurd victim meme...more »

Militants who have pledged allegiance to Islamic State now control some territory in Libya. (file photo) *Issandr El Amrani, Foreign Policy*: *How Much of Libya Does the Islamic State Control?* More than you think -- and it’s growing. But putting boots on the ground could only make the situation worse. The world is waking up to the threat posed by the Islamic State’s expansion in Libya over the past year. The renewed Western focus on combating the group is related to the Nov. 13 Paris attacks — although they had nothing to do with Libya — and the increasing recognition that the U....more »

*Muse: Unintended* This is a belated *Valentine's Day wish* for all the Romantics out there. Written and sung by one of the greatest guitarist/musician/singer/songwriters of our time.... *UNINTENDED* *You could be my unintendedChoice to live my life extendedYou could be the one I'll always love * *You could be the one who listensTo my deepest inquisitionsYou could be the one I'll always love * *I'll be there as soon as I canBut I'm busy mending brokenPieces of the life I had before * *First there was the one who challengedAll my dreams and all my balanceShe could never...more »

The head of the Roman Catholic Church has questioned Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s credentials for qualifying as a Christian who follows the path of the righteous. In an interview Pope Francis condemned Donald Trumps behaviour during the U.S. presidential race saying his ideas were “not Christian.” Trump fought back by calling the pontiff “disgraceful” and a “pawn”. Just Jared reports: “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a Christian and as President I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weaken...more »

[image: Voters, Voting, Elections, Vote Buttons, Vote Pins, I Voted] Voters want more say in elections and less influence from the news media, special interest groups, and the wealthy a new survey reveals. The Rasmussen Reports survey, released Tuesday, found that although 61 percent of likely voters believe that their vote...more »

If you're anything like me, at least politically, you're probably talking with friends who are sympathetic with Bernie's platform but absolutely positive that nominating him would be suicidal for the Democratic party. They assert that they don't trust Hillary or like her but that she's the only protection we have against Herr Trumpf, Cruz or Rubio. The argument drives me bonkers because it's based on carefully choreographed Establishment propaganda. Every poll-- not some polls, *every* poll-- shows that it's patently false. Pundits who repeat it (sometimes ad nauseam) are either i...more »

“This telescopic close-up shows off the otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410. It also features two remarkable inhabitants of the cosmic pond of gas and dust below and right of center, the tadpoles of IC 410. Partly obscured by foreground dust, the nebula itself surrounds NGC 1893, a young galactic cluster of stars. Formed in the interstellar cloud a mere 4 million years ago, the intensely hot, bright cluster stars energize the glowing gas. *Click image for larger size.* Composed of denser cooler gas and dust, the tadpoles are around 10 light-years long and are likely sites of ongoi...more »

*“A Fear of Freedom?”* by Chet Raymo “It is almost a cliché to say that Western civilization was created by the Greeks. Our government, law, art, music, architecture, literature, drama, historiography, science, and mathematics are largely Greek inventions. The sublime refinement and sophistication of the Parthenon have been widely taken as reflecting qualities of the Athenians citizens who built the temple and adorned it with sculptures. No doubt something remarkable happened in the Greek world of the 6th to 3rd centuries B.C.E., with its epicenter first at Athens, then at Alexandr...more »

KJ and Fee explain... SOURCE GUARDIAN: HSBC to keep its headquarters in London, after concessions from chancellor HSBC is to keep its headquarters in the UK after a 10-month review during which time the government has made a series of changes regarded as favourable to the bank. After the May 2015 Conservative election victory the chancellor, George Osborne, has backed away from creating

A man at a site recently hit by what activists said was a Scud missile in Aleppo’s Ard al-Hamra neighborhood, February 23, 2013. REUTERS/Muzaffar Salman *Doyle McNamus, L.A. Times*: *What happens next in Syria?* U.S.-backed agreement on a “cessation of hostilities” in Syria is supposed to take effect at the end of this week, but there's been no sign of hostilities slowing — let alone ceasing. Instead, Russia's air force, Bashar Assad's ground forces and even neighboring Turkey have all escalated attacks on the rebels whose five-year-long uprising against Assad is faltering. In nor...more »

*"Learning to Slow Down: The Time of Your Life"* by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOM "When we rush through our days and lives, we fail to notice the simple beauty of living. Throughout our lives, we are taught to value speed and getting things done quickly. We learn that doing is more valuable than merely being, and that making the most of life is a matter of forging ahead at a hurried pace. Yet as we lurch forward in search of some elusive sense of fulfillment, we find ourselves feeling increasingly harried and disconnected. More importantly, we fail to notice the simple beauty of livi...more »

"Now I believe I can hear the philosophers protesting that it can only be misery to live in folly, illusion, deception and ignorance, but it isn't- it's human." - Desiderius Erasmus *"The Spectacle of Human Folly," 1872* Glaize, Auguste Barthelemy (1807-93); French. Medium: oil on canvas. Date: 1872. Le Spectacle de la Folie Humaine; image depicts killings of Heretics, Christians and those of the Bible; Provenance: Musee des Beaux-Arts, Arras, France/Giraudon. "It would indeed be a tragedy if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more than the story of an ape playing ...more »

*Feb. 18 Syria War Live Updates: * *Russia Warns Turks- "We May Bomb Your Troops"* by U.S.Reporter *"NATO to tell Turkey "no support" if they invade Syria.* After yesterday's "terrorist" bombing in Ankara, the Turkey gov't is on the warpath; claiming fingerprints from the dead car bomber's body prove it was Kurds from Syria! They are moving troops toward the Syria border. Just a couple problems: The car bomb was said to contain 1,000 pounds of C-4 plastic explosives when it detonated; there would not have been anything left of the car bomber for them to obtain fingerprints from! On ...more »

*Did Anton Chigurh pay a visit to Antonin Scalia?* *Title: Investigator: The Strange Trip Of Scalia's Body. Source: The Alex Jones Channel. Date Published: February 18, 2016. Description:* Alex Jones talks with investigative journalist Wayne Madsen and Infowars reporter Joe Biggs about the ongoing investigation into the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. "We know that VIPs come in and out of this particular resort, the ranch where Scalia was. And we know there's been a lot of Hollywood types. *They actually filmed part of the movie with Tommy Lee Jones 'No Country For O...more »

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon has said that Saudi Arabia and Turkey have ulterior motives for wanting to send troops to Syria. Nasrallah, the Secretary General of the Lebanese political and paramilitary organization Hezbollah, accuses the Turks and the Saudis of wanting to”gain a foothold in the country.” He claims that the terrorists in Syria are on a loosing streak and that their backers are driven by “hatred” for the Syrian regime, and the groups that support them. Deutsche Welle reports: Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah says talk that Ankara and Riyadh plan ...more »

Only one data point, but it’s an interesting one: *Auckland has survived the first hurdle of the bus drivers' strike with commuters reporting "dream runs" and lighter than usual traffic . . . Commuters who contacted the Herald about their trip to work have reported smooth and free-flowing traffic - some are even saying the strike should happen everyday.* And 62 % of respondents to the Herald’s straw poll think the bus strike made the traffic better. [image: image] Sure, some commuters will have stayed away. But is it just possible the value of buses has been overstated...more »

[image: Vatican Walls] The Internet might explode today as Americans react to Pope Francis' off-the-cuff statement about Donald Trump and immigration. Before I comment on a story that has already morphed into hundreds of bleeding headlines, let me reproduce in full the exchange...more »

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is a front for French intelligence, according to Syria’s representative to the UN. Bashar al-Jaafari defended Assad and Russia from accusations that they had bombed the hospital in northern Syria. On Monday a hospital in Muratt al Numan run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) was destroyed by missiles. Independent.ie reports: The MSF hospital in the north-western, rebel-held province of Idlib was bombed twice with two missiles each time on Monday morning. Five patients, including a child, five members of hospital staff and a caretaker were killed, with t...more »

[image: Ben Carson at North Texas Presidential Forum, October 18, 2015, speaking about the problem of judicial activism.] The death of Justice Antonin Scalia and the efforts of liberals to swing the Supreme Court to the left with a non-conservative replacement focuses a laser spot on the problem of judicial activism. It is a debate that in recent years...more »

By Paul Homewood h/t 1saveenergys https://www.newscientist.com/article/2077540-the-big-carbon-clean-up-2-steps-to-stop-global-warming-at-1-5c/?cmpid=NLC Take a deep breath (and don’t breath it out again), and read what New “Scientist” has to say! ECSTATIC celebrations broke out in Paris just before Christmas. World leaders acclaimed their freshly forged deal to fight climate change. There were hugs and tears. But hold […]

*VOA*: *Turkey Blames Ankara Bombing on Syrian With Kurdish Ties* Turkey has blamed the car-bombing that killed 28 people in Ankara on a Syrian man with links to Kurdish militia groups, but the United States said Thursday it has yet to determine who launched the attack. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Wednesday's attack in the Turkish capital was carried out by the PKK Kurdish separatist group, "together with a person who sneaked into Turkey from Syria." *Read more* .... *MIDDLE EAST* U.S.-led strikes in Syria kill 38 civilians *in past two days: monitor.* U.N. aims to air d...more »

[image: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy listens during the Chesapeake Bay Program's 2014 Executive Council Meeting at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland.] The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it's respecting a recent Supreme Court ruling halting the implementation of the agency's key global warming regulation, but the agency's top official is sending a different message to states. On the one hand, the...more »

[image: German Chancellor Angela Merkel drinks a glass of water after her speech a day before an EU council meeting, at the German parliament Bundestag in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. Merkel said that it’s in Germany’s national interest for Britain to remain in the European Union, and pressed her fellow European leaders to work with Turkey to curb the migrant influx.] A leaked report from Germany's Federal Criminal Police Agency reveals refugees committed over 200,000 crimes between 2014 and 2015. The report is only supposed to be seen by police and other government emp...more »

http://eleventyoneblog.com/shakubuku/ ShakubukuMy friend recently reminded me of this exchange from the movie Grosse Pointe Blank: *Debi*: You know what you need? *Marty*: What? *Debi*: Shakubuku. *Marty*: You wanna tell me what that means? *Debi*: It’s a swift, spiritual kick to the head that alters your reality forever. *Marty*: Oh, that’d be good. I think. It turns out shakubuku is a real thing. *It is a Buddhist practice of moving towards enlightenment by destroying illusions.* From what little I’ve read about it, it sounds like the no-nonsense, hit you with a stick school of Bu...more »

Tim Montgomerie is no household name, but his resignation from the Tories after 28 years of membership have certainly caused ripples on the right side of political life. As the founder of the Ashcroft-bankrolled Conservative Home and former backroom boy for various leading Tories, Tim is probably the most influential Tory not to hold any kind of office. As Paul Goodman notes, a number of his ideas have got taken up by party bigwigs. So as that vanishingly rare beast, the Conservative Intellectual, Tim's departure from the scene is something of a deal. You'll have to get the night v...more »

The Irving press actually has TWO headlines about Dennis Oland. The first one is the banner headline lead story in Section A telling us he was denied bail, and is now in the pen. The other is the banner headline lead story for Canada and World, ...more »

The New York Times http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/world/europe/belgium-nuclear-official-video-paris-attacks.html?referer=http://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/02/belgian-police-find-video-of-nuclear-official-at-home-of-jihad-terror-suspect report something that the BBC won't... ' The police in Belgium have retrieved 10 hours of video footage of a Belgian nuclear official from the home of a suspect in the November Paris attacks, Thierry Werts, a spokesman for Belgium's federal prosecutor, said on Thursday. A person close to the investigation, speaking on the condition of anonymity,...more »

Dozens of Turkish military vehicles have reportedly crossed the Syrian border over border into Afrin a Kurdistani area. The military vehicles advanced 200 meters into the Syrian Kurdish region in Aleppo province on Thursday and troops have began to dig a trench according to the Kurdish NHA news agency. RT reports: It added that the troops started digging a trench between the towns of Sorka and Meydan Ekbis. According to the agency the construction of a concrete wall on the Syrian border in the area is ongoing as well. The agency posted photos of ongoing operations on its website. #R...more »

The recent Ankara bombing could have been a false flag operation by Turkey to justify moving into Syria. The latest attack in the heart of the capital and near government and military buildings has been blamed on Syrian Kurds, giving Turkey justification to pursue its campaign of securing territories in Syria, with help from CIA/Turkey/Saudi sponsored terrorists. Russia Insider reports: Ankara Bombing: A False Flag to Justify Erdogan’s Invasion of Syria? In March 2014 tape recordings of a meeting between the Turkish then Foreign Minister Davutoglu, the chief of the Turkish intelligen...more »

[image: Senator Mike Enzi] Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi is continuing his push to ensure government agencies aren't frivolously spending money on public relations after another government official failed to respond to the lawmaker's request for information on the issue in October. In a letter written to Government Accountability...more »

[image: Gender neutral bathroom - 900] We knew this was coming and we told you this was coming, yet many people still refuse to believe us. Even as I write these words, different cities in America are considering dangerous and irrational laws that impose unfair and potentially...more »

[image: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, center, shakes hands with supporters after speaking at a rally at Truckee Meadows Community College on Monday, Feb. 15, 2016, in Reno, Nev.] WASHINGTON (AP) -- So much for Bernie Sanders’ big win in New Hampshire. Since then, Hillary Clinton has picked up endorsements from 87 more superdelegates to the Democratic National Convention, dwarfing Sanders’ gain from the New Hampshire primary, according to...more »

[image: Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., leaves the House Republican Conference meeting at the Capitol Hill Club on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015.] A select investigative panel of the U.S. House of Representatives has issued subpoenas to a research company, a university and an abortion provider, saying the organizations failed to cooperate fully with a probe of Planned Parenthood's practices and procedures related to...more »

Lt. General John Nicholson speaks during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday on Capitol Hill. *The Hill*:* Gen. Nicholson's task in Afghanistan* The most interesting revelation during the confirmation hearings of Army Lt. Gen. John Nicholson, who was nominated as the next commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was the revelation by Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) that Nicholson's great-great-uncle was British Lt. Gen. John Nicholson, who had participated in the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839 to 1842) and been held captive in Ghazni. It was also int...more »

Photo: USAF *Bureau of Investigative Journalism:* *US airstrikes in Afghanistan killing civilians at greatest rate for seven years, new figures show* The rate at which civilians are being killed by US airstrikes in Afghanistan is at its highest point since 2008, an analysis of newly published UN data reveals. Research by the Bureau shows that on average a civilian was killed every fourth drone or jet strike in 2015 – up from one in 11 attacks the year before and the first time the casualty rate has risen since 2011. The rate was last at such levels at the height of the Afghan war ...more »

I have been under constant attack now by the fools in the "flat earth" club... I honestly cannot understand in this day and age and with all the important information and common sense out there that is readily available that there are still those out there that actually have themselves convinced that we live on a "flat" Earth... I figure I would once again take my shots at these idiots and fools in the "flat Earth" crowd, and to help even them understand how even the ancients from thousands of years ago proved that we live on a round Earth, I want to present a very factual video whe...more »

*Feld Entertainment Brings the #1 Animated Movie of All Time to Life with* *Disney On Ice presents Frozen * *Presented by Stonyfield YoKids Organic Yogurt* *Debuting In Salt Lake City for Nine Performances From March 2 – 6!* There was an audible gasp in my house when I announced that Disney on Ice presents Frozen was coming to town. If there are two things we love in our house it is Disney on Ice and Frozen. Even my youngest dances around in an Elsa dress singing Let it Go! We are so excited to go and we will be bringing you all sorts of Frozen ideas over the next couple of weeks to g...more »

Column: This is what happens when you take Ayn Rand seriously: The core of Ayn Rand's philosophy is that unfettered self-interest is good and altruism is destructive. So what if we indeed allowed ourselves to be blinded to all but our own self-interest?

Russia says it can attack Turkish troops if they enter Syria, and it would not necessarily lead to a confrontation with NATO. Tea Party reports: Since the weekend, Turkey has unleashed its 155-millimeter heavy guns across the border with Syria. The targets are Kurdish forces, whose recent advance is a key part of the Russian plan to extend President Bashar al-Assad’s control over Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday refused to stop the shelling and said Turkey was acting in self-defense. Syria’s five-year war has turned into a tangled web of proxy conflicts bet...more »

[image: Pope Francis and Donald Trump] “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Pope Francis said, in response to a reporter’s question about whether a Catholic could vote for Donald Trump. “This is not in...more »

[image: South Korean protesters burn an effigy of North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un during an anti-North Korea rally on February 11, 2016 in Seoul, South Korea. South Korea announced on February 10, 2016 that the country would close an industrial complex jointly ran with North Korea, as the strongest response for North's recent nuclear test and rocket launch.] A South Korean government official has issued a warning that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is preparing to engage in various terrorist attacks against the country. Rep. Lee Chul-Woo claimed Thursday that South Korea intelligence...more »

[image: Clavius (Joseph Fiennes), with Jesus’ disciples, witnesses a miracle in RISEN, in theaters nationwide, Feb. 19, 2016. Photo: Columbia Pictures] The movie Risen, written by Paul Aiello and directed by Kevin Reynolds is a story familiar to Christians, but with a twist: it is the story of Christ's death and resurrection told from the perspective of a Roman military tribune...more »

*(Click on Image to Enlarge)* *Doctors Without Borders:* *Report: Documenting War-Wounded and War-Dead in MSF-Supported Medical Facilities in Syria* As the conflict in Syria approaches its sixth year, the humanitarian and medical toll of the violence remains appalling. Millions of people have been internally displaced or have sought refuge abroad. Millions more are trapped in communities that are under siege or hemmed in by the closed borders of neighboring countries. These countries, already overwhelmed by the numbers of Syrians seeking protection, have increasingly introduced re...more »

If you work for the Elite who profit from the military industrial complex, do not expect them to take care of you while in Iraq or Afghanistan. Not unless you work in the private sector and have connections. U.S. soldiers paid with their health while a company related to the Former U.S. Vice President, Dick Cheney made profits. They made money for themselves and their friends by hiring private contractors while treating serving soldiers without due care and respect. A new book claims that a Dick Cheney related company got rich while U.S. soldiers fighting for their country in Iraq a...more »

*“How People Learn to Become Resilient”* by Maria Konnikova "Well, we're scared, but we ain't shakin'. Kinda bent, but we ain't breakin' In the long run." - Eagles, "The Long Run" “Norman Garmezy, a developmental psychologist and clinician at the University of Minnesota, met thousands of children in his four decades of research. But one boy in particular stuck with him. He was nine years old, with an alcoholic mother and an absent father. Each day, he would arrive at school with the exact same sandwich: two slices of bread with nothing in between. At home, there was no other food av...more »

*THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2016Evening Joe, directly followed by Rachel's animal sounds:* The final question of last night's town hall pretty much captured the hour. Candidate Trump was getting grilled, in merciless fashion, by the hard-hitting Joe and Mika. He was also taking fire from the South Carolina voters who had been selected to throw questions at him. Now, the hour was almost done. One last voter stood to grill Trump. This is the question she asked: BRENNA (2/17/16): My question for you is, *why did you decide to run for the presidency in the first place?* Let's face it—t...more »

Yes, last week was Valentine's Day here in Canuckleheadistan... And of course I could not help during my time laid up with that nasty head cold in noticing all the Jew spew media commercials about "Giving Diamonds" for your "true love"..... I for one am not fooled and have known for decades that the entire Diamond industry is nothing but a scam and a money making enterprise... Few people are even aware that Diamonds themselves are absolutely NOT RARE at all , and that they have been carefully manipulated throughout recent history in a case of supply and demand to create the illusion...more »

“I still wonder why we, over time, don’t make every public school a charter school.” He continued, “You couldn’t do it all overnight, but you could do it over 20, 25 years. - See more at: http://www.aft.org/ae/winter2014-2015/kahlenberg_potter#sthash.y5Y6mha1.dpuf “I still wonder why we, over time, don’t make every public school a charter school.” He continued, “You couldn’t do it all overnight, but you could do it over 20, 25 years. - See more at: http://www.aft.org/ae/winter2014-2015/kahlenberg_potter#sthash.y5Y6mha1.dpuf “I still wonder why we, over time, don’t make every public sc...more »

Russian jets have been carrying out operations over Syria *The Hill*: *Pentagon: Russia agreed not to strike US forces in Syria* The Pentagon revealed Thursday that Russia granted a U.S. request not to target American special operations forces deployed to northern Syria, a previously unreported cooperation between the U.S. and Russia. The Pentagon made the request to the Russians after a U.S. decision to send the special operations forces into Syria last year, according to Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook at a briefing. "When the decision was made to put special operators into Syria,...more »

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

*Title: Peter Ford On The Syrian War. Source: SeekingTheTruth5. Date Published: February 16, 2016. Description: * Peter ford is a former UK ambassador to Syria (2003-2006) "At the end of the day, they are a secular regime, they are the only force in the field that is likely to keep Syria a pluralistic, secular society that respects women. The people who call for the overthrow of Assad need to answer this question: what's going to take the place of the Syrian regime, which controls, despite everything, over sixty percent of the population? . . You take away the Syrian government ther...more »

*Reuters:* *Turkey blames Kurdish militants for Ankara bomb, vows response in Syria and Iraq* Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed a Syrian Kurdish militia fighter working with Kurdish militants inside Turkey for a suicide car bombing that killed 28 people in the capital Ankara, and he vowed retaliation in both Syria and Iraq. A car laden with explosives detonated next to military buses as they waited at traffic lights near Turkey's armed forces' headquarters, parliament and government buildings in the administrative heart of Ankara late on Wednesday. Davutoglu said the...more »

*“Conspiracy Theorists Say Republican Party Did Not Die from Natural Causes”* by Andy Borowitz WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)— “Conspiracy theorists believe that the Republican Party did not die from natural causes but was instead the target of an elaborately planned killing, a leading conspiracy theorist has confirmed. Theorists are considering a host of suspects, including Donald Trump, former running mates John McCain and Sarah Palin, and the novelist Ayn Rand. Harland Dorrinson, whose basement walls are covered with photos of suspects in the killing of the G.O.P., has spent ...more »

*“The Burden of Skepticism”* by Carl Sagan “What is Skepticism? It's nothing very esoteric. We encounter it every day. When we buy a used car, if we are the least bit wise we will exert some residual skeptical powers—whatever our education has left to us. You could say, "Here's an honest-looking fellow. I'll just take whatever he offers me." Or you might say, "Well, I've heard that occasionally there are small deceptions involved in the sale of a used car, perhaps inadvertent on the part of the salesperson," and then you do something. You kick the tires, you open the doors, you loo...more »

*"This Is A Turkish False Flag Event"* by Bob Moriarty "The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true." - Carl Sagan "There are times I wonder if the world has lost its collective mind. There are other times where I don’t wonder at all. Turkey wants to start World War III. It will be nuclear. This is a false flag event I predicted on the 15th. "Car Bomb Strikes Military Convoy in...more »

[image: SENECA, SC - FEBRUARY 17: Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks to voters during a campaign event at Seneca Family Restaurant February 17, 2016 in Seneca, South Carolina. Cruz continues to campaign for the upcoming GOP primary in South Carolina.] Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz narrowly leads Donald Trump in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll of Republican voters -- 28 percent to 26 percent. The results are a statistical dead heat since the difference is within the poll’s margin of error, and diverge...more »

*As a government it is never a good idea to kill your own soldiers because sooner or later the truth starts leaking out.* *An excerpt from, "Ankara Bombing Fails To Achive Strategic Changes" by b, Moon of Alabama, February 18, 2016:* The bombing in Ankara yesterday killed 27 mostly military people. It was a big car bomb and a suicide attack.The Turkish government claims that the person who did this was one Saleh Nejar and also claims that he is connected to the Syrian Kurdish group YPG. There is no way to verify this. But the YPG has so fare never used any car bombs or done any su...more »

[image: Holidays_in_other_peoples_misery] *Guest post by Michael Tanner* Less than three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, socialism seems to be undergoing something of a revival. A self-professed “democratic socialist” is running for the U.S. Democratic Party presidential nomination, and he is running neck and neck with a party icon. Polls show that more than a quarter of Americans have a favorable opinion of socialism, which might not sound so bad until you learn that that includes 43 percent of those under age 30, and 42 percent of Democrats. Meanwhile, barely half...more »

*CNN*: *Pope suggests Trump 'is not Christian'* (CNN)Thrusting himself into the combative 2016 presidential campaign, Pope Francis said Thursday that GOP frontrunner Donald Trump "is not Christian" if he calls for the deportation of undocumented immigrants and pledges to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. The Pope, who was traveling back to Rome from Mexico, where he urged the United States to address the "humanitarian crisis" on its southern border, declined to say whether American Catholics should vote for Trump. But Francis left little doubt where he stood on th...more »

*CNN*: *Venezuelans face a 6000% hike in gasoline price* For two decades, Venezuelans have paid just pennies at the pump. But on Wednesday, President Nicolás Maduro announced that they'll soon be paying a lot more. Before the announcement, a liter of high-quality gas in Venezuela cost about 10 centavos or one U.S. penny. Now it costs 6 bolivars or about 60 U.S. cents -- a 6000% price increase. "That's an aggressive hike in fuel prices and it's still the cheapest in the world," says Edward Glossop, an economist at Capital Economics who covers Venezuela. *Read more* .... *WNU Edi...more »

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an old Argentinian left-wing intellectual currently employed as a visiting scholar in Rome (under the artistic name "Pope Francis") decided to influence the U.S. presidential elections – and make a fool out of himself, too. Google News. He commented on Donald Trump's immigration policies (Trump is a Presbyterian so I guess he doesn't care about Bergoglio too much): *Holy daddy:* A person who thinks only about *building walls*, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, *is not Christian*. *This is not in the gospel.* LOL, very funny. One rule that ...more »

A peer reviewer apparently thought portions of a manuscript he was reviewing were so good he wanted them for himself. Substantial sections of a paper that Junwei Di reviewed appear in his own paper on a method for making tiny particles of silver to precise specifications. Di is a chemist at Soochow University in China. The […] The post Peer reviewer steals text for his own chemistry paper, gets sanctioned by journal appeared first on Retraction Watch.

*IBTimes*: *North Korea Preparing To Conduct Cyber, Terror Attacks In South Korea, Intelligence Officials Say* Following widespread condemnation of North Korea’s satellite launch earlier in February and its alleged hydrogen bomb test in January, South Korean officials warned that Kim Jong Un asked his military officials and intelligence agents to boost preparations for launching terror attacks in South Korea, according to Yonhap. The report comes as Seoul is working with the U.S. and United Nations Security Council to expand sanctions against Pyongyang after the satellite launch o...more »

President Barack Obama answers questions at a news conference following the conclusion of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders summit on Tuesday in Rancho Mirage, Calif. *US News and World Report:* *Obama Breaks from 2014 Assessment, Calls Russia ‘Major Military’* *Has Putin’s war in Syria, focused now on Aleppo, changed how Obama views America’s former Cold War foe?* President Barack Obama levied harsh criticism against Russia’s recent aggressive action in Syria in support of the Bashar Assad regime on Tuesday. But while he continued with his rhetoric that V...more »

By David Swanson If you've just seen Michael Moore's movie and are wondering how in the world the United States got diverted into the slow lane to hell, go watch Noam Chomsky's movie. If you've just seen Noam Chomsky's movie and are wondering whether the human species is really worth saving, go see Michael Moore's movie. If you haven't seen either of these movies, please tell me that you haven't been watching presidential debates. As either of these movies would be glad to point out to you, that's NOT HOW YOU CHANGE ANYTHING. "Filmed over four years, these are his last long-form ...more »

*"A Journey Through the Baltimore Ghetto"* by Bill Bonner BALTIMORE – "We left the fantasy island of modern finance today. We had to take our pick-up truck in for repairs. The dealers all seem to be in East Baltimore… or east of Baltimore… so we drove out of Mulberry Street to Pulaski Highway and finally over to Merritt Boulevard. *A Different World: *Just three blocks east of our office, in the Mt. Vernon district, a different world begins. The first indication of it is the old stone prison at the bottom of the hill, first commissioned in 1801. For more than 200 years, Baltimore’s...more »

Turkey says that the only way to stop the war in Syria is to deploy ground troops in the Arab country’s northern regions. On Tuesday a Turkish official called on the United States and its allies to take part in a joint ground operation in Syria, saying it would be impossible to stop the war without a greater effort against a Moscow-backed Syrian government offensive. Press TV reports: A Turkish official told reporters in Istanbul on Tuesday that the only possible solution to the conflict in Syria is ground operations, but Turkey would not carry out such an operation on its own. “We ...more »

Let's say you have a trial coming up and you realize you're not able to do the trial when scheduled – maybe you need a witness who is away or you decide you need a lawyer or maybe you have a family member who is ill. What do you do? Well the very first thing you do is ask whoever the other side of they will agree to an adjournment. Most of the time if there is a good reason the other side will agree to an adjournment. Even in law suits most people are reasonable about things like a necessary delay. Of course that point cuts both ways and if the other side asks you for an adjournme...more »

Major Bernie Scandal Alert! Four Democratic economists who served at various times as economic advisers to Presidents Clinton or Obama have written a scathing open letter, accusing another economist not even affiliated with the Sanders campaign of doing math which does not add up to their unspecified specifications. Gerald Friedman of UMass-Amherst, who recently received progressive accolades for his own scathing takedown of a Wall Street Journal hit piece falsely asserting that Sanders's single payer health care plan would bankrupt the middle class, now finds himself the target of ...more »

The following is a guest post by Dan Reiter, the Samuel Dobbs Candler Professor of Political Science at Emory University. Dr. Cullen Hendrix’s recent Duck of Minerva post on citation counts sparked a vibrant discussion about the value of citation counts as measures of scholarly productivity and reputation. Beyond the question of whether citation count data […]

*It's coming from the feel* *That this ain't exactly real* *Or it's real but it ain't exactly there* *by Gaius Publius* Ah democracy; it creeps in through the cracks, even through the cracks of the deliberately undemocratic use of superdelegates by the king- and queenmakers in the Democratic Party. (Ironic name, that.) Here's what I mean by "undemocratic" — Debbie Wasserman Schultz explains it to Jake Tapper (h/t Daily Kos diarist Th0rn; my emphasis): *TAPPER:* Hillary Clinton lost to Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire by 22 percentage points, the biggest victory in a contested Democ...more »

*Reuters*:* Pope says Trump 'not Christian' in views, plans over immigration* U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is "not Christian" because of his views on immigration, Pope Francis said on his way back to Rome from Mexico. The pope said, however, he did not want to advise American Catholics on whether or not to vote for Trump. In a freewheeling conversation with reporters on his flight back from a visit to Mexico, Francis was asked about Trump and some of his statements, such as vowing to build a wall between the United States and Mexico if he becomes president...more »

A pair of U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles fly over northern Iraq after conducting airstrikes in Syria, in this U.S. Air Force handout photo taken early in the morning of September 23, 2014. (Reuters/U.S. Air Force/Senior Airman Matthew) / Reuters *Military.com*:* Cost of Anti-ISIS Campaign Now Passes $6 Billion* U.S. advisers have joined Iraqi forces mustering in central Iraq for an eventual attempt to retake Mosul, which would be the centerpiece in the campaign to defeat the Islamic State that has now cost the U.S. more than $6 billion. Citing a Defense Department spokesman, t...more »

*THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2016Part 4—The Isaacson 17:* In the vast majority of situations, Walter Isaacson is a very clear writer. That's why Isaacson's 2007 best-seller, Einstein: His Life and Universe, gives us a window into the culture of incomprehension which surrounds major parts of academic and journalistic endeavor. (In hard copy, Isaacson's book entered the New York Times best-seller list at number one. It spent fifteen weeks on the list.) Isaacson is a major American journalist and author. In the words of the leading authority on his life, "he has been the chairman and CEO...more »

Popack v. Lipszyc, 2016 ONCA 135: [25] The order under appeal is discretionary. Virtually all discretionary orders involve the balancing of competing interests. In most cases, the existence of a discretion implies that different judges can reasonably arrive at different results. Consequently, appellate courts will defer to the exercise of discretion at first instance absent a clearly identifiable error in the application of the law, a material misapprehension of the relevant evidence, or a result that is clearly wrong in the sense that it is not defensible on an applicati...more »

https://lisagawlas.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/the-bubble-of-creation-turned-to-electromagnetic-field-of-experience/ *The Bubble of Creation Turned to Electromagnetic Field of Experience!! * *by Lisa Gawlas * Now we can "see" what that "fiber" really has done!! Well my slight panic attack of one more day of not seeing was unwarranted, phew, thank you dear good god!! A four-day fast is long enough to go without munching on some serious soul food!!! And holy wonderment, what deep soul food you all presented, a brand new flavor arrives!! There was a constant thru ever reading that b...more »

TUCSON ALTERNATIVE SPRING BREAK TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS: (Please post and share) Tucson, Az March 14-20 In a little over a month, an amazing confluence of conferences, gatherings and events are taking place in Tucson, during spring break, between March 14-20, 2016. They are being co-sponsored by many departments and organizations throughout the state of Arizona, but principally the Mexican American Studies Department at the University of Arizona. • The Indigenous Knowledge Gathering: March 16-17 https://www.facebook.com/events/1171429946205691/ • The National Association for Ethnic S...more »

Financial links between Cherie Blair’s law firm and the corrupt dictator of a tax haven with an appalling record on human rights have been revealed. Mrs Blair, who trumpets her human rights work, faces a corruption probe over a £420,000 deal with the autocratic Maldives President and despot Abdulla Yameen RT reports: Omina Strategy, the law firm founded by former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife, earned more than £2,000 (US$2,850) a day working for Yameen in various capacities, including managing his administration’s PR. The firm claims it was hired to help “improve transparency ...more »

*Shane Harris, Daily Beast:* *Apple Unlocked iPhones for the Feds 70 Times Before* A 2015 court case shows that the tech giant has been willing to play ball with the government before—and is only stopping now because it might ‘tarnish the Apple brand.’ Apple CEO Tim Cook declared on Wednesday that his company wouldn’t comply with a government search warrant to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino killers, a significant escalation in a long-running debate between technology companies and the government over access to people’s electronically-stored private information...more »

Korea Times *Washington Free Beacon:* *Report: U.S. Cannot Protect Homeland From Iranian, North Korean Missile Strikes* *Little proof billion-dollar defense system actually works* The United States remains incapable of fully protecting the homeland from ballistic missile strikes from North Korea and Iran, despite spending billions to develop a missile defense system that remains unproven and unfinished, according to a government oversight report. The U.S. Missile Defense Agency, or MDA, continues to sink billions of taxpayer dollars into technology that is not proven to be capable...more »

A Toronto hospital network is keeping two researchers’ labs closed even after an Ontario court quashed part of a misconduct finding by the institution. Some background: After the University Health Network found evidence of falsified data, Sylvia Asa stepped down as Program Medical Director of the Laboratory Medicine Program, the largest hospital diagnostic laboratory in Canada. Due to the investigation, UHN suspended the labs […] The post Sanction for Toronto researchers upheld despite court challenge appeared first on Retraction Watch.

Why are death rates rising in developed economies? Austerity causes biggest rise in England’s death rate since WWII – health expert. RT, February 16, 2016, https://www.rt.com/uk/332633-austerity-death-rate-rise/ Published time: 16 Feb, 2016 15:23 Preliminary figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) indicate mortality rates in 2015 rose by 5.4 percent on 2014 - an increase of nearly 27,000 deaths, bringing the total to 528,340. Death rates in England and Wales had been falling since the 1970s, but this trend reversed in 2011 when mortality rates started rising.Health ad...more »

You will find our latest Global Network newsletter at this link just below. Please give us a hand by sharing the link widely so others can see the newsletter. http://www.space4peace.org/newsletter/Space%20Alert%2033.pdf You can also order print copies from us for local distribution in your community. All we ask is that you cover postage of the bundle to you. Let us know how many copies you want and we'll mail them and when the package arrives just send us back a check for the cost of postage. Many thanks for helping us spread the word about these important global space and pea...more »

Turkish fighter jets have carried out airstrikes in northern Iraq following Wednesday’s car bomb explosion in Turkey’s capital, Ankara. Turkey’s General Staff said that the airstrikes hit the Haftanin area in Dohuk Province of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. Press TV reports: Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said between 60 and 70 PKK militants were killed in the airstrikes, including some senior figures of the Kurdish militant group. At least 28 people lost their lives in the Wednesday bombing, during which a car laden with explosives detonated next to military buses as the...more »

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.” ―Jiddu Krishnamurti by Dylan Charles A sage is someone who can put into words the aspects of our mysterious nature that most of us can only feel. At times in my life I have been overwhelmed by the world and confused about the purpose of it all. I spent much time in anguish, behaving in self-destructive ways, wondering why happiness was so elusive. In this struggle, I passed many years looking outward for the source of turmoil in my world, trying to tweak, upgrade and replace parts of my life that seemed ...more »

[image: In this November 7, 2008 photo then-President-elect Barack Obama paused as he spoke with reporters during his first press conference at the Chicago Hilton in Chicago, Illinois.] What a shock. Now that he's at the White House -- and facing GOP opposition to appointing a new Supreme Court justice in the mere months before a new president is elected -- President Barack Obama seems to have changed...more »

After very high levels of violence following the liberation of Ramadi, there was a dramatic decline in the second week of February. For example, there were the lowest reported deaths since 2013. It appeared that the Islamic State’s counter attacks after its recent loss subsided for at least a week. There were only 119 reported security incidents from February 8-14, 2016. That averaged out to 17.0 per day. That compared to 19.5 from January 1-February 7, which was the highest rate in five months. The large number of attacks was due to IS picking up its operation following the Iraq...more »

[image: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures while speaking during a campaign stop at Exeter Town Hall in Exeter, N.H., Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016.] Donald Trump has refused to meet with a coalition of pro-family Americans, but that hasn't stopped them from posing their questions to the Republican candidate. This week 26 pro-family organizations signed a letter to Trump asking him several questions he may...more »

[image: Russian air forces strike against ISIS in Syria in October 16, 2015.] The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported Wednesday that three Israeli missiles struck Syrian army outposts near the capital of Damascus. No casualties have been reported thus far, and it appears the missiles have only caused property damage. A...more »

*Daily Beast*: *Exclusive: Obama Refuses to Hit ISIS’s Libyan Capital* The terror group is gaining ground in Libya. But the Obama administration has said no to a Pentagon plan to go after ISIS there. Despite the growing threat from the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Libya, the Obama administration has turned down a U.S. military plan for an assault on ISIS’s regional hub there, three defense officials told The Daily Beast. In recent weeks, the U.S. military—led by its Africa and Special Operations Commands—have pushed for more airstrikes and the deployment of elite troops, par...more »

A journal is retracting a paper about a heart surgery technique after discovering the researchers did not have ethics approval to perform a the procedure on 130 patients. What’s more, the local cardiac surgical society had asked the first author to stop using the method in 2004, six years before the study was complete. The patients […] The post Don’t perform heart surgery described in retracted paper, says editor appeared first on Retraction Watch.

Six military personnel were killed and one seriously wounded in an explosion that hit a military convoy in the southeast of Turkey. The blast that was reportedly caused by a home-made device and follows yesterday car bomb attack that killed 28 people in the Turkish capital of Ankara. RT reports: The military also said that a handmade bomb was detonated by remote control while the military vehicle was searching for mines on the highway linking Diyarbakir to the district of Lice, Reuters reports. According to reports, a number of soldiers arrived at the scene of the accident and sta...more »

*NBC:* *President Obama to Make Historic Visit to Cuba, U.S. Official Says* Barack Obama will become the first sitting American president to visit Cuba in nearly 90 years, in what would be a crucial turning point between the Cold War rivals that recently shed their decades-old hostilities. Obama will visit the communist island nation in the coming weeks, a senior administration official told NBC News, adding that the details would be announced Thursday as part of a larger tour by Obama of Latin America. Plans for the presidential visit could also coincide with a trip by a Major Le...more »

The thin blue line is real The thin blue line defines us The thin blue line is a coat of many colours In Canada our thin blue line is the envy of the Americas but the line in Euope is much better Why do they drive 10 year old Golfs with no armour?

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrive for a joint news conference following their talks at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow, Russia, February 17, 2016. REUTERS/Maxim Shipenkov/Pool *Reuters*: *Putin says EU-Russia ties will return to normal 'sooner or later'* Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he is sure that relations between Russia and the European Union will get back to normal sooner or later. "It will happen sooner or later. Relations between Russia and the European Union will be normalized," Puti...more »

Bernie's the best there is so, let's be clear from sentence one-- this is not meant to shake anyone's faith him him. Unless you were around when FDR was president, I have no doubt a Bernie presidency would be the most positive and consequential presidency in your lifetime. And mine. But he made a mistake when he was campaigning in New Hampshire. He allowed a highly flawed congressional candidate, Shawn O'Connor, to speak at some of his events. That's because O'Connor endorsed him. O'Connor, a Wall Street guy who was advocating cutting Social Security benefits a few weeks before hi...more »

[image: A statue of Cecil John Rhodes was removed from University Of Cape Town on April 9, 2015 after a concerted student protest.] South Africa's University of Cape Town (UCT) was rocked by racially-motivated destruction Tuesday, as a group of students looted several buildings and made a bonfire out of portraits and photographs of white people. At UCT, a movement calling itself "Rhodes...more »

[image: In this Monday, Feb. 15, 2016, file photo, Mount St. Mary's President Simon Newman, center, prepares to address a rally of students with his wife, Michelle, at his side, in Emmitsburg, Md. At left is rugby coach Jay Myles.] EMMITSBURG, Md. (AP) -- Everyone at Mount St. Mary’s University eats at Patriot Hall -- students, faculty and even President Simon Newman. But the other day, hours after Newman rejected the faculty’s demand to resign, the airy, glass-walled cafeteria split...more »

[image: AP_Kenya al-Shabab_attack_Islamic extremist] NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Kenya’s military says an airstrike killed the head of intelligence of al-Shabab, a Somali-based extremist group who’s believed to have been among those who planned attacks on Kenyans. In a statement, military spokesman Col. David Obonyo...more »

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has launched an iris scan payment system in Jordanian supermarkets. The technology has been set up to enable Syrian refugees staying in migrant camps to conduct purchases at local shops using their eyes instead of cards, cash, or vouchers. RT reports: With a wink of an eye refugees at King Abdullah Park camp made their first purchases at a local supermarket on Tuesday, as part of the new program designed to simplify the redeeming of their monthly UN food aid. Developed by partners of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) the syst...more »

A Syrian army outpost south of Damascus was hit by an “Israeli bombardment,” according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Deutsche Welle reports: “The location was targeted by three missile strikes, which caused physical damage,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said in a report. “It is unknown whether members of Hezbollah were inside the location or not,” SOHR added, referring to an armed Lebanese Shiite movement allied with the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. However, the Reuters news agency reported that a “pro-Syrian government military source” had denie...more »

[image: President Barack Obama talks to media in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016, at the bottom of a meeting, where he announced that former IBM CEO Sam Palmisano, former National Security Adviser Tom Donilon are being appointed as the Chair and Vice Chair, respectively, of the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)] WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama will pay a historic visit to Cuba in the coming weeks, senior Obama administration officials said, becoming the first president to set foot on the isla...more »

http://quotesgram.com/ Justin Trudeau won the election on his promise to run deficits but return to a balanced budget by the end of his term. He's backed away from the promise to return to balance by the end of the term -- something that isn't surprising, given the slowing U.S. and Chinese economies. But, Tim Harper writes, Trudeau will have to eventually answer the questions, "How big and How long?" And the answers to those questions will not come easily: Big city mayors have big city hopes for infrastructure spending. The AFN w...more »

*Free-range education: Why the unschooling movement is growing* *This seems rather extreme* A once-utopian idea – allowing kids to ‘discover’ their own education path while learning at home – goes mainstream. On a late Monday morning in this rural New Hampshire town, Dayna and Joe Martin’s four children are all home. Devin, age 16, is hammering a piece of steel in the blacksmith forge he and his parents built out of a storage shed in the backyard. Tiffany, 14, is twirling on a hoverboard, deftly avoiding the kaleidoscope-painted cabinets in the old farmhouse’s living room. Iv...more »

An internet privacy organization has planned nationwide protests over a court order pressuring Apple Inc. to build a backdoor into their encryption security, used on their smart-phones, to allow the FBI access. Fight for the Future, dedicated to fighting basic internet rights and freedoms, is organizing protests at Apple stores nationwide. Sputnik reports: The protests will not be against Apple, who has released a message to their customers decrying the order and vowing to challenge it, but against the US government. “They’ve been wanting to do this for years, but now they’re exploi...more »

[image: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, center, shakes hands with supporters after speaking at a rally at Truckee Meadows Community College on Monday, Feb. 15, 2016, in Reno, Nev. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)] LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Nevada was supposed to be one of Hillary Clinton’s safest bets. She already had staff on the ground last spring, weeks before officially announcing her presidential bid. One of her earliest campaign stops was an emotional...more »

[image: In this Sept. 9, 2014, file photo, Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during an announcement of new products in Cupertino, Calif. Faced with a federal judge’s order to help investigators break into an iPhone allegedly used by one of the San Bernardino, Calif., shooters, Apple may well argue that the request would place an unreasonable burden on the company.] WASHINGTON (AP) -- An extraordinary legal fight is brewing with major privacy implications for millions of cellphone users after a federal magistrate ordered Apple Inc. to help the FBI hack into an iPhone used by the gunman in the...more »

*Global Warming’s Personal Health Threat (?)* *It had to happen: Now the Zika virus is caused by global warming. Since there has been no warming for over 18 years that is simply a lie. And if warming does resume and tropical diseases move poleward that will be no great problem. I grew up in the tropics so I can assure one and all that proper public health measures make life in the tropics no more onerous than anywhere else. But I grew up in an advanced country. Backward tropical countries are a different kettle of fish -- not to be generalized from* When you think of the plane...more »

After a 4 year hiatus, I was able to participate more fully in this year's Great Backyard Bird Count which I touched on in a couple of previous posts and which wrapped up this past Monday. Fortunately this year I was off for most of it, hitting six locations in over the course of the 4 days. The home front, MacDonald Island, The Snye, Birchwood Trail, the river valley and even Suncor base plant proved to be some pretty good spots. I worked the last day but was able to do a count throughout the day on my down time. Suncor isn't exactly a place where you'll get good variety but it ...more »

St. Patrick's Day holds a special place in my heart. It was on St. Patrick's Day 10 years ago that my husband and I had our first date. I feel extraordinarily lucky to have found him all those St. Patrick's Days ago and today I am sharing a printable that shares that sentiment. I love the song Lucky by Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat and wanted a printable of my favorite line from the song. The printable prints on an 8.5x11 piece of paper and then has a border for you to trim down so it easily fits in an 8x10 frame. This sweet printable hangs out on my piano from after Valentine's ...more »

Starbucks and other coffee-house chains like Costa serve shocking amounts of sugar in some of their popular hot drinks. Evening Post reports: The high levels have been exposed by campaign group Action on Sugar. It said 35 per cent of flavoured hot drinks contained the same amount or more sugar than the nine teaspoons in a can of Coca Cola. The group looked at 131 hot flavoured drinks in its study. It found that 98 per cent of them would receive a red/high label for excessive levels of sugars per serving of the drink. Starbucks’ Hot Mulled Fruit Grape with Chai, Orange and Cinnamon V...more »

A mysterious ear-piercing shrieking sound has left an Oregon neighborhood completely baffled. The loud sound randomly rings near Gales Creek Road, Forest Grove, Oregon. KOIN6 reports: Paula Lynch tells KOIN she first heard the noise about two weeks ago. Since then, she’s heard it four other times. Her neighbor has heard it three times. Both Lynch and her neighbor, who asked that her name not be used, describe the sound as loud and like a warning alarm. “It’s hard to identify what angle its coming from because it just kind of encompasses the area,” Lynch said. “We’re just hoping some...more »

[image: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a rally at Bonanza High School, on Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016, in Las Vegas.] Many people of mature years are amazed at how many young people have voted for Senator Bernie Sanders, and are enthusiastic about the socialism he preaches. Many of those older people have lived long enough to have seen socialism fail,...more »

By Paul Homewood http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/mugabe-first-to-u-n-trough-in-global-warming-shakedown/ From Investor’s Business Daily: Corruption: Zimbabwe tyrant Robert Mugabe is asking the United Nations for $1.5 billion a year to feed his people, who he says are hungry due to global warming. The looting begins. About a year ago, we said that the global warming scare is not […]

John Oliver, back this week after his long absence . . . . An American favorite? Aha! And "summing up everything great in New Zealand," watch Peter Jackson wave the new flag (and later, the "Hallelujah Chorus!"). (Dildo Baggins?) Believe it or not the NZ Economic Development Minister, Steven Joyce, begged someone to send the footage to John so he could run the film against the TPP. "Get it

The transcript is given on Youtube: The start of the new academic semester has led to the latest textbook controversy. Parents are upset that new freshman high school civics textbooks include passages about the student-led Sunflower Movement of 2014. Parents argue that illegal activities shouldn’t become part of the curriculum, though civics teachers say the movement is now part of history, and shouldn’t be regarded as controversial. Opening Hanlin Book Publisher’s high school freshman civic textbook, one can read a passage about the student Sunflower Movement. *This text has anger...more »

[image: Jesus Cross Money - 900] DUDLEY HALL -- The visitor saw an old sombrero on the rack in my house. "Boy!" he said, "I have always wanted one of those, but never been to Mexico to get one. Would you be willing to sell it?...more »

*"I am your density,"* You'll all find the above *Back-to-the-Future *DENSITY *chuckle-quote* relavant in the following presentation from the son of Colonel Philip Corso, author of the confessional-whistleblow *The Day After Roswell*. *The allegations in this book rocked the foundations of the cover-up by revealing how Col. Corso, acting on behalf of the the US government, directly over saw the harvesting and reverse engineering of crashed spacecraft of ET origin, which led to the development of laser technology, fiber optics, polymers and anti-gravity technology. Lt. Col. Corso was...more »

[image: DubaiPan] *I took this massive panorama (original) during my favorite moment in Dubai: a trip to the Pakistani cricket pitch. On one side are skyscrapers of Dubai, on the other, working class homes.* A few months ago, my friend Michael Cannon gets in touch with me. "I'm going to Dubai in February, want to come and join me for some workshops at Gulf Photo?" "I'd love to," I replied, "but I got two kids in college." "No problem," my generous friend assured, "I'll cover it." And so he did, and so I went. I ended up visiting three of the emirates that make up the United Arab Emi...more »

A top Kurdish commander has claimed that Turkey are actively supporting terrorist groups such as ISIS, arming them with weapons and munitions with its ally Saudi Arabia. Murat Karayılan says he has documentary evidence that the AKP, headed by Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, has links to numerous terror groups including ISIS. RT.com reports: Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has an “ideological inter-relationship” and joint interests with the radical Islamists, Karayılan said in an interview to RIA given in the Qandil Mountains, an area in Iraqi Kurdistan, ...more »

28 people have been killed and a further 61 injured in a large military car bomb explosion in Turkey’s capital city Ankara on Wednesday night. Officials say the car bomb targeted military personnel who were travelling in a vehicle which was stopped at a traffic light. Aljazeera.com reports: The death toll rose steadily on Wednesday night, with those wounded in the blast sent to hospitals across the city. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for an urgent emergency meeting with top level security officials in Ankara. “We will continue our fight against the pawns that carry ...more »

A Russian expert has claimed that the crashed Malaysian Boeing-777 (MH17) was shot down by an air-2-air missile and not the BUK missile system as stated by the Dutch commission. The claims are from the chief researcher of the Central Research Institute of the Ministry of Defence Force, Zahar Omarov. “I can say that our results refute the conclusion that the aircraft was shot down by a missile from the anti-aircraft missile system of “Beech”. Most probably, it was a class missile “air-air” with a mass of high-explosive fragmentation warhead is not more than 33 kg (weight of the mis...more »

The United Nations (UN) say that they are in contact with someone who claims to be an extraterrestrial from another planet who desperately needs to talk to Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton, who has promised to release all of the top secret files the U.S. holds on aliens and UFOs if she becomes President, has yet to respond to the alien named ‘Mogay’. Express.co.uk reports: The UN correspondence provided was a reply Ms McFadden to a qeury entitled “Did the UN have a reseetlement process and protection policy about extraterrestrial being?”. Her reply said: “Dear Mogay, Ban Ki-moon, t...more »

Officials in Iraq have said that “highly dangerous” radioactive material was stolen last year and may have fallen into the hands of ISIS militants. The material was stored in a case the size of a laptop and went missing from a US-owned storage facility in Basra, according to ministry documents. Independent.co.uk reports: An unnamed senior security official with knowledge of the theft said: “We are afraid the radioactive element will fall into the hands of Daesh (Isis). The document, dated 30 November and addressed to the ministry’s Centre for Prevention of Radiation, describes “the...more »

YourNewsWire.com received an apparent “urgent” message from a relative of a Nigerian Astronaut who is tragically lost in space and seeking our help to come home. Subject: Nigerian Astronaut Wants To Come Home Dr. Bakare Tunde Astronautics Project Manager National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) Plot 555 Misau Street PMB 437 Garki, Abuja, FCT NIGERIA Dear Mr. Sir, REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE-STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL I am Dr. Bakare Tunde, the cousin of Nigerian Astronaut, Air Force Major Abacha Tunde. He was the first African in space when he made a secret flight to the Salyut...more »

President Obama has snubbed the funeral of US Supreme Justice Antonin Scalia, causing confusion among government officials at the White House and Congress. “If we want to reduce partisanship, we can start by honoring great public servants who we disagree with,” Obama’s former “car czar” Steven Rattner tweeted after hearing about Obama skipping the funeral service. Politico.com reports: Fox News host Sean Hannity blasted out his own site’s article that dismissed the decision as disappointingly expected: “Obama To SKIP Scalia Funeral, Here’s A List Of OTHER Funerals He Was Too Busy To...more »

Both the US and UK governments have issued new public warnings about a possible nuclear war, issuing various TV broadcasters new warning messages to play to the public in the event of an attack. The alerts, labelled “Nuclear Attack Emergency Alert System Messages!”, are designed to prepare the public in the event of a massive nuclear attack and the radioactive fallout. Superstation95.com reports: During a special, one-hour broadcast on Tuesday, 16 February 2016, radio host Hal Turner reported to the world about the latest severe troubles in Syria, and the NUCLEAR THREAT which was m...more »

U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Saudi Arabia's King Salman at Erga Palace in Riyadh, Jan. 27, 2015. *Sarah Chayes and Alex De Waal, Defense One:* *Start Preparing for the Collapse of the Saudi Kingdom* For half a century, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been the linchpin of U.S. Mideast policy. A guaranteed supply of oil has bought a guaranteed supply of security. Ignoring autocratic practices and the export of Wahhabi extremism, Washington stubbornly dubs its ally “moderate.” So tight is the trust that U.S. special operators dip into Saudi petrodollars as a counterterroris...more »

[image: Super Bowl Flyover-900] The U.S. Navy Blue Angels perform a flyover concluding the opening ceremony of Super Bowl 50 on Feb. 7, 2016, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. While most of us watched the Super Bowl, this photo is too stirring...more »

[image: Black and white dice compressed] Answer this question: could you, by counting the number of coins some guy puts into one of two cups, deduce that mankind evolved from brutes into cooperative, altruistic animals because men sometimes believed in the existence of punitive gods? Because...more »

[image: Theodore Shoebat2 - 900] In a very troubling video, Theodore Shoebat, son of former Muslim Walid Shoebat, has claimed that if "sodomites" had walked into the Temple of Jerusalem, Jesus would have killed them. This is absolutely outrageous, totally unscriptural, and downright dangerous. Mr....more »

Jeb's campaign has long since crashed and burned but there was a time when he seemed as inevitable as Hillary (was). All the pundits expected a Clinton-Bush redux. Back at the end of 2014, a poll from CNN showed Jeb with a gigantic lead-- 23%, with Christie, Carson, Huckabee, Paul, Rubio, Ryan and Cruz trailing-- with the kind of numbers Jeb has today. Even as late as the very end of last June, CNN's polling was still showing Jeb significantly ahead of the pack: *•* Jeb- 19% *•* Herr Trumpf- 12% *•* Huckabee- 8% *•* Dr. Ben- 7% *•* Randy Paul- 7% *•* Rubio- 6% *•* Walker- 6% *•* P...more »

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Reuters *Zhen Liu, South China Morning Post:* *China must prepare for war over North Korea, according to a top military adviser* A Chinese military adviser has warned China to be prepared for war in the Korean Peninsula, but not to sacrifice as much as it did in the 1950s. Speaking on the deterioration of the security situation after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s recent nuclear and satellite tests, Major General Wang Haiyun said in an article on Tuesday that China must “take strong counter measures” as it faced various threats. “[China] must ad...more »

[image: Scalia3 - 900] Few people in modern history have fulfilled their oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution” more than the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia was so well respected that the Senate voted 98-0 in 1986 to confirm him. These days...more »

Sent to the South China Morning Post, Feb 18, 2016 Lovelyn Wong ("Assessment serves useful purpose," Feb 15) advises parents not to be too hasty in calling for an end to the Primary Three-Territory Wide System Assessment. Ms.Wong argues that tests help reveal students' weaknesses and help teachers improve their instruction. This argument has been used to justify increased testing in the United States as well. There is no evidence that it is true; in fact studies done at the secondary school level comparing grades teachers give students and standardized tests show that grades are an...more »

Reuters *Gordon G. Chang, Daily Beast:* *Will Kim Jong Un Go to War?* *With South Korea’s president flinging insults and his country losing important sources of income, Kim is facing a huge crisis—and it might just push him to the brink of invasion.* In a nationally televised speech Tuesday, South Korean President Park Geun Hye defended her controversial decision to close the Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea. She also delivered comments sure to enrage Kim Jong Un, the leader of that destitute and dangerous state. For instance, she promised her government would take “stron...more »

I've been giving some more thought to a potential supers game. It still might not come to anything, but it's a fun exercise. Currently, I'm engaging in a bit of a catch-up on *Arrow *and *The Flash*. I've also seen the bulk of the first two seasons of *Agents of SHIELD*, but I'll admit to having lost interest. I'm also caught up on *Daredevil *and *Jessica Jones*. I mention all of these as of late I've found superhero television shows offer good inspiration on how to build a superhero game. Why not comic books? For me at least, I've found that comic books of late have been far to...more »

*Max Fisher, VOX:* *America's unlearned lesson: the forgotten truth about why we invaded Iraq* Donald Trump finally said something so outrageous that the other candidates onstage and even the debate audience closed ranks against him. Here is what Trump did: He accused George W. Bush of launching the Iraq War based on a lie: *You do whatever you want. You call it whatever you want. I want to tell you. They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.* Trump's 10-second history of...more »

[image: N8EqtaN3MeRvLRt2] A car bomb is believed to have killed 18 and injured 45 in the Turkish capital of Ankara Wednesday, with speculation the blast may have targeted a nearby military facility. Turkish media first reported a large explosion around 6:50 p.m....more »

This image from a video released by the U.S. military last month shows an airstrike targeting an ISIS cash and finance distribution center near Mosul, Iraq. *Reuters*: *Hundreds of millions of Islamic State funds destroyed in air strikes: U.S.* U.S.-led air strikes on Islamic State cash storage sites have cost the militant group hundreds of millions of dollars, a U.S. military spokesman said on Wednesday. The United States is trying to cut revenue to Islamic State - believed to be one of the best-funded militant groups in the world - through air strikes targeting its oil producti...more »

[image: In this Feb. 5, 2016 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington. President Barack Obama is asking Congress for more than $1.8 billion in emergency funding to help fight the Zika virus. In an announcement Monday, the White House said the money would be used to expand mosquito control programs, speed development of a vaccine, develop diagnostic tests and improve support for low-income pregnant women. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)] During a press briefing on Wednesday, the White House confirmed that Pr...more »

*Washington Examiner:* *White House misses deadline to deliver Islamic State strategy to Capitol Hill* The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Tuesday that the administration is essentially sending troops into the "wilderness with a compass, but no map" after it failed to deliver a strategy to defeat the Islamic State by Monday's deadline. The fiscal 2016 National Defense Authorization Act required the administration to provide a strategy to counter violent extremism by Monday, a deadline it missed. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said the failure to come through is ...more »

[image: Pope Francis stands a platform near the U.S.-Mexico border fence along the Rio Grande, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016, as seen from in El Paso, Texas, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. Francis made the sign of the cross and blessed hundreds of people gathered in El Paso.] CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) -- In a moment filled with powerful political symbolism, Pope Francis prayed Wednesday at Mexico’s dusty northern border for the thousands of migrants who have died trying to reach the United States and appealed for governments...more »

Richard Florida writes about social and economic theories in the context of a changing urban environment. He teaches at the University of Toronto and his best known books are *The Rise of the Creative Class*, *Cities and the Creative Class* and *The Flight of the Creative Class*, which make the case that the accellorated economic development in urban areas is attributable to an open, accepting and dynamic environment because of what he calls "high bohemians" or the "creative class"-- artists, musicians, gays, technology nerds. Although some critics dismiss his work as elitist, he's...more »

GSK fined £38m for stifling drug competition “at the expense of the NHS and taxpayers” Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has been fined £37.6m by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). It relates to £50m of payments made to rivals for them to effectively delay the release of the anti-depressant paroxetine drug. GSK's branded version of the drug, Seroxat, was then able to continue its

By Frontera NorteSur Censored News Editor's note: On his journey to Mexico this week, Pope Francisco visited Chiapas, Mexico City, Mexico state, Morelia and Ciudad Juarez. During his stops the Pope made general references to many burning issues confronting Mexico- drug violence, human trafficking, the breakdown of the social fabric, the marginalization of the nation's original peoples,

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com *FOX News:* *Clinton email chain discussed Afghan national's CIA ties, official says* EXCLUSIVE: One of the classified email chains discovered on Hillary Clinton’s personal unsecured server discussed an Afghan national’s ties to the CIA and a report that he was on the agency’s payroll, a U.S. government official with knowledge of the document told Fox News. The discussion of a foreign national working with the U.S. government raises security implications – an executive order signed by President Obama said unauthorized disclosures are “pre...more »

*Remember the dreaded terror group: Khorasan? I’ll remind the readers of the air strikes the US undertook to ‘target’ Khorosan. Conveniently located in north western Syria at the Turkish border. I had my suspicions way back about “Khorosan” * *First up! Pentagon** US Willing to Consider Air Support for Afrin Kurds in N Syria* *The US military will look into the possibility of supporting from the air the Afrin Kurds’ advances in northern Syria against Daesh, Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Col. Steve Warren told reporters on Wednesday.* pic from Sputnik *"Right now our airp...more »

*President Obama laughing at Saudi Arabia's invasion plan for Syria.* *Title: Saudi Plans for Syria Ground Invasion: Bluff or a Disaster in the Making? Source: The Real News. Date Published: February 16, 2016. Description:* Vijay Prashad and Paul Jay discuss the potential consequences of a Saudi-Turkish invasion of Syria, more likely aimed at Assad than ISIS and on a collision course with Russia (1/2)

* 7th century religious thinking with 21st century weapons = Armageddon.* "Saudi Arabia has talked for years about acquiring a bomb from the Pakistanis. “The House of Saud has now made the strategic decision to move forward,” a former US defense official said." (*Source*). *Title: Saudi Political Analyst Dahham Al-‘Anzi: KSA Has Obtained Nuclear Bomb. Test May Be Held Soon. Source: MEMRITVVideos. Date Published: February 16, 2016. Description: * Saudi political analyst Dahham Al-‘Anzi spoke on Russia Today Arabic TV channel on February 15 and claimed that Saudi Arabia has obtained ...more »

“What strange world is this? Earth. In the foreground of the featured image are the Pinnacles, unusual rock spires in Nambung National Park in Western Australia. Made of ancient sea shells (limestone), how these human-sized picturesque spires formed remains unknown. In the background, just past the end of the central Pinnacle, is a bright crescent Moon. The eerie glow around the Moon is mostly zodiacal light, sunlight reflected by dust grains orbiting between the planets in the Solar System. *Click image for larger size.* Arching across the top is the central band of our Milky Way Ga...more »

*"The Supreme Paradox"* by Robert Ardrey ․ "Man is a fraction of the animal world… We are not so unique as we should like to believe. The problem of man’s original nature imposes itself upon any human solution. Amity – as Darwin guessed but did not explore – is as much a product of evolutionary forces as contest and enmity. In the evolution of any social species including the human, natural selection places as heavy a penalty on failure in peace as failure in battle. ․ A certain justification has existed until now, in my opinion, for submission of the insurgent specialists to the cen...more »

* "Why Are You Here?"* by Robert Lanza, M.D. "Why do you happen to be alive on this lush little planet with its warm sun and coconut trees? And at just the right time in the history of the universe? The surface of the molten earth has cooled, but it's not too cold. And it's not too hot; the sun hasn't expanded enough to melt the Earth's surface with its searing gas yet. Even setting aside the issue of being here and now, the probability of random physical laws and events leading to this point is less than winning every lottery there ever was. Biocentrism, a new theory of everythin...more »

"Lessons" by Chet Raymo "There is a four-line poem by Yeats, called "Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors": "What they undertook to do They brought to pass; All things hang like a drop of dew Upon a blade of grass." Like so many of the short poems of Yeats, it is hard to know what the poet had in mind, who exactly were the unknown instructors, and if unknown how could they instruct. But as I opened my volume of The Poems this morning, at random, as in the old days people opened the Bible and pointed a finger at a random passage seeking advice or instruction, this is the poem that p...more »

RAF Typhoon jets were scrambled on Wednesday to intercept two Russian Tu-160 Blackjack bombers heading towards UK airspace. The Telegraph reports: The Typhoon jets were dispatched from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire on Wednesday afternoon following the security alert. An RAF spokesman said the situation was “on-going” and was not uncommon. He said: “We have Typhoons up on a quick reaction alert. The situation is on-going.” It is believed the aircraft are with the Long Range Aviation branch of the Russian military. They have never penetrated UK airspace. Typhoon jets can be deployed i...more »

*Statue of "Justice" outside of the Vancouver, BC Courthouse* There's a big media hullabaloo going on south of the border regarding the death of US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. I'm not too familiar with the man or his jurisprudential record. It seems as though he was a "conservative" justice and perhaps the only conservative on the Supreme Court at the time of his death. There's a lot of controversy in the alternative media surrounding the circumstances of his death at the age of 79. Did he die as reported of a heart attack? Or, was he murdered (speculation swirls that he ...more »

Thank you to Buck Sampson, Carl Bad Bear Sampson and all our Western Shoshone friends for sharing photos of the American Indian Movement's Rally for Leonard Peltier in Reno, Nevada. More photos from Bad Bear of the Rally at: http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2016/02/bad-bears-photos-reno-aim-rally-for.html

*Sam Heller, VICE News*: *The Battle for Aleppo Shows That US Strategy in Syria Is in Tatters* The countryside north of Aleppo, Syria's largest city, is the latest crucial battlefield in the Syrian civil war — and it could also become the place where the United States' strategy to combat the so-called Islamic State in Syria falls apart. The US-led coalition had been backing Aleppo rebels who were trying to capture the last stretch of border with Turkey controlled by the Islamic State, but those rebels were left stranded after a new offensive by Syrian regime forces earlier this m...more »

[image: : U.S.-led coalition spokesman Col. Steve Warren addresses media during a press conference at the Embassy of the United States in Baghdad, Iraq on December 21, 2015.] The U.S. and its allies are putting the squeeze on ISIS finances by targeting and blowing up money reserves worth "hundreds of millions of dollars." U.S. Army Col. Steve Warren, the spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force -- Operation Inherent...more »

We bloggers tend to become a little incestuous. We pat each other on the back, link to each other and I suppose we create our own little bubble. Some might say we regurgitate, plagiarise, gossip, and preach to the choir. Perhaps we’re almost as biased against the BBC as the BBC is biased against our politically incorrect viewpoints. Perhaps we *all* try hard not to let our biases cloud our ability to see the bigger picture. But the BBC hardly ever entertains the possibility that it could be at fault, and it’s powerful enough not to care. The area of biased broadcasting that intere...more »

[image: Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, left, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pose for photographers as she arrives for a meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. China's moves to assert its sovereignty claims in the South China Sea are expected to be a key agenda item during a visit to Beijing Wednesday by Bishop.] WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States warned Wednesday of rising tensions in the South China Sea after China appeared to have placed a surface-to-air missile system on a disputed island. Taiwan’s defense ministry said t...more »

[image: Dirty Bomb Drill - 900] Iraq is scrambling to find “highly dangerous” radioactive material stolen late last year, Reuters is reporting, based on an environmental ministry document and confirmed by seven security, environmental and provincial officials. The officials fear the material could be used as a...more »

So what does it mean to shift to 4D or another dimension or a Golden Age? What does it look like here, now, on a frigid, quiet Midwestern US afternoon to an average human in 2016? Here’s what is noticed and considered. Perhaps it’ll resonate for you as well. Please share your own noticing’s. We are associative beings. In this way, we can help each other. There have been moments when I’ve watched myself. It’s as if full emotional engagement is no longer a guarantee. I can play a game, lead a children’s group, or carry on a conversation without all of me being there; yet full...more »

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About Me

I've been 'around' for a few years now, pursuing the shifting goal of a sharable home-made surfers resource site focused on ease of use and variety of mostly adult ( whoa : I didn't say prurient ) content.